ByJoe Guzzardi

Joe is a CAPS Senior Writing Fellow whose commentaries about California's social issues have run in newspapers throughout California and the country for nearly 30 years. Contact Joe at joeguzzardi@capsweb.org, or find him on Twitter @joeguzzardi19.

The writer's views are his own.

March 15, 2016

Supreme Court decision could determine nation’s fate.

On April 18, the Supreme Court will hear U.S. v. Texas which could reward nearly 5 million illegal aliens with a temporary deportation stay, but also employment authorization documents, Social Security numbers and other benefits.

Since no replacement has been confirmed to replace Justice Anton Scalia, who died suddenly last month, eight justices will hear the landmark case. That makes the math interesting because a 4-4 vote means that the lower court rulings which upheld Texas would either remain intact or possibly the case could be carried over until the Court reconvenes in October.

Some legal experts maintain that only seven judges should be on the bench during the oral arguments. They specifically insist that Justice Sonia Sotomayor should recuse herself because of her well-established pro-illegal immigration stance, and therefore she cannot be expected to rule impartially.

Sotomayor was once on the Board of Directors at the Puerto Rico Legal Defense and Education Fund, an advocacy group that supports amnesty, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund lobbied for her Supreme Court confirmation. Moreover, as noted by Judicial Watch, Sotomayor made Supreme Court history when she used the politically correct terms “undocumented immigrant” and “undocumented worker” instead of the proper reference, “alien.” Judicial Watch has chronicled what it calls Sotomayor’s long history of gender and race-based activism.

The very idea that the Supreme Court accepted U.S. v. Texas is frightening for Americans who want immigration laws upheld, and not imposed through an unconstitutional executive action as President Obama did. Daniel Horowitz, a respected lawyer who writes about immigration, said that Texas and the other 25 states are “playing defense,” and that the lawsuit presents no upsides especially in light of the Court’s earlier unfavorable ruling on Arizona v. U.S. which challenged S.B. 1070.

Still, the states’ claim that Obama violated the Constitution’s Take Care Clause – “The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed” – is compelling, and one that the justices will find difficult to ignore.

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